The greatest two minutes in marketing

May 09, 2019 • Aaron Goldman

The Kentucky Derby has been called the greatest two minutes in sports. It can also be the greatest two minutes in marketing for brands that capitalize on multi-screen video viewing and engagement.

This past weekend’s race featured a controversial finish that extended the audience captivation well beyond the two minutes and four seconds it took Country House to complete the track.

Looking at the social media reaction around the Derby, we saw engagement spike 590% in the 2 hours following the disqualification of Maximum Security, while sentiment dropped 27%.

The peak of engagement was 5 minutes after the review ended and that was also the low point for sentiment at 48% negative.

For brands that were tuned in to the extended attention and swing of emotions, new stories were told and tales of “whoa” emerged.

Just like the race itself, the case studies are under review but we can trot out a shining example from last year that actually just won the Audience Honor for Real Time Media Buy at the Shorty Awards. This campaign for Woodford Reserve featured assets from Kertis Creative and media placement from Spark Foundry using Scope by 4C to sync Twitter video ads to the brand’s TV spots.

Speaking of bourbon, we looked into the top brand affinities for people who engaged with the Kentucky Derby across Facebook and Twitter this year and found Maker’s Mark atop the leaderboard.​​​​​